Burn point...

Hi again,


Yes I see your point about evidence - but all evidence is subject to interpretation, I'll try and explain.

We (well at least I) did notice your description of your snakes behaviour but put a slightly different slant on it;

The hot end temp was too hot for him to stay in it for an extended period of time.:)

So you saw him cycling between that and the cool end all the time. Now it is comfortable enough for him to simply stay there when he feels his body temperature needs to be on the hot side. While mine do use both sides I usually know this because some mornings they are on the cool side and some mornings the hot - I do see them move every now and again but not all the time.

Yep your temps are now low enough that the intial reaction (jesus his snakes going to get burnt to bits) isn't an issue. As to him burrowing down to the glass that is a behaviour we always told you was likely and can you imagine what would have happened if he'd done it earlier?:eek:

I was thinking about how to explain the external/internal temp sense problem and have decided to use frying a fish in batter as an example.:P

If the fat is too cold it won't cook the batter and everything disintigrates, if the fat is too hot the batter burns while the fish in the middle is still raw. If you get it just right the batter and fish are both perfect.

Note: the previous 2 paragraphs may make no sense as I am a lousy cook.

He may just be one of those snakes who likes to be hot - but I doubt it in all honesty and would expect his behaviour to settle down over the coming weeks to what is considered normal (hiding and asleep almost all the time :P ).

As for not wanting to address that he was flourishing before I honestly didn't see that as an issue that needed addressing - he had the required temperature range to be able to flourish. He just had an extra 10- 15 degrees on top of it which could have caused a problem. Keeping animals is more often about spotting problems before they happen and avoiding them when it comes to setting habitats as animals have a distressing habit of doing things we consider dumb - and we're hardly perfect. As I keep pointing out Elvis ate cheeseburgers and he had the whole human sized brain thing going for him.

As an extreme example to clarify what I mean think of it like this;

A drunkard running around with a 12" razor sharp carving knife is a perfectly healthy and happy drunkard - till he trips.

How you tell the difference? You ask questions of, and listen to, people who have been doing it long enough to have seen a bleeding drunkard and worked out how to stop it happening again.

I also understand not liking conflicting information but as there is an element of art in animal husbandry it's always going to be a factor.

A "how to" book on painting may tell you you need a number 7 brush and a specific type of paint but we all know Rembrandt (sp?) could probably have bettered their example with a shovel and some horse dung.

Note: reference previous note- I cant draw either.


So, as a way forward for you, why not contact the big breeders/hobbyists in the industry and ask them for their opinions?

They are the people who truly know their animals best and have the experience you can't really argue with till you have the same.



dr del

Darn it Derek, another post I cannot rep.

Here is another way of explaining why your snake may seem healthy despite the extra heat. Lets look at what extra heat does to an organism aside from causing burns. One of the most common side effects of extra heat is a faster metabolism. A fast metabolism can be a problem for any animal on a fixed diet as it may not recieve enough nutrients to support the quickened metabolism and may cause mild to sever starvation in your animal. Now since you say your snakey seems to be flourishing one can imagine that your feeding schedule allows your snake to support the quickened metabolism. Now what happens when a abnormally fast metabolism is met with adequate food supply? Simple, abnormal growth. What you take to be healthy growth due to increase in size may in fact be very detrimental to your snakes overall health. Most likely the quickened growth rate will cause the body to make short-cuts in order to keep pace, just like your minimal wage construction workers. The skeletal structure will be weakened due to the inability for skeletal growth to keep up with muscular growth. Blood pressure rises, and organs are stressed and tumors are also a common side effect of abnormally rapid growth/metabolism. Now, other ball pythons may grow faster than your ball python, and they may be kept in proper temperatures, but that means their genes have determined they will grow fast. Genetics plays a key role. Now if you have a snake that should grow at a typical rate, yet it seems to be gaining size like a champ due to husbandry or other practices then problems are a definite possibility. Just like when we take steriods of human growth hormones to speed up our own growth. We just arnt meant to develop that quickly.

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Originally Posted by dr del

I was thinking about how to explain the external/internal temp sense problem and have decided to use frying a fish in batter as an example.:P

If the fat is too cold it won't cook the batter and everything disintigrates, if the fat is too hot the batter burns while the fish in the middle is still raw. If you get it just right the batter and fish are both perfect.

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Dr. Del, you're post sounds so defensive I feel bad. I apologize if I come accross that adversarial. Honestly, I don't think anybody on here is far off-base (if they are off-base at all). If I sound challenging it is only to elicit a more thorough response in the spirit of debate.

Your point about the temps being more tolerable leading to long stays in the warm hide makes perfect sense. In addition, the burrowing could simply be a side effect of the longer stays. But - this raises an interesting question: If we are shooting for the perfect temp then why the two hides for thermo regulating? Also, there is an implicit assumption here which is that a constant temperature is best. If my snake cycles to adjust his temperature to his liking then what basis is there for us to assume that we know better? It could very well be possible that temperature fluctuations drive some metabolic processes in BP's.

Gooseman, your suggestion that I may be creating a monster hell-spawn ball python is interesting. In fact, I had considered the metabolism angle myself. But, I did not assume it was negative. Regular exercise increases your metabolism to your benefit. Steroids artifically increase growth processes to your detriment. But, nits aside, I get your point.

So, aside from actual contact burns, it is still unclear to me what the symptoms of overheating are. Gooseman, you have suggested shortened lifespan but that is based on a single case of a snake of a different species, correct? That's not to invalidate your experience but it is a small "sample set".

I noticed that the vast majority of people on this site have relatively young snakes. It would be interesting to test the life-span question by polling people with the older snakes.

Right, it sounds exagerated, however you'd be surprised at how little excess growth can cause negative side-effects. The difference between a genetically large snake and a "normal" bp is not all that impressive a difference size wise, however causing a "normal" bp to grow at a rate typical of a bp with the genes to grow big can be detrimental to it's health. Not necessarily a monster hell-spawn ball-python. lol.

You have to remember that increases in metabolism are good when they can be controlled. However increasing metabolism based on heat rather than use (i.e. exercise) does have documented negative side effects.

Yes, that was my experience with a different species of snake. However it is not too difficult to see that these ranges do occur often. Think about it, even among ball pythons kept in fancy settings, the range of life expected is 20-30 years with some living up to 45+ years. Now imagine what the lifespan of a snake kept in sub par conditions? I highly doubt it reaches the 20 years at all.

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Also, there is an implicit assumption here which is that a constant temperature is best. If my snake cycles to adjust his temperature to his liking then what basis is there for us to assume that we know better? It could very well be possible that temperature fluctuations drive some metabolic processes in BP's.

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The colder the temperature, the slower the metabolic rate. That we know for sure... so why would a fluctuating metabolism be a good thing? I think Occam's Razor applies here. Why make assumptions when said assumptions aren't required? Unless you have evidence suggesting temp fluctuations are a good thing, it's probably wise to assume they aren't.

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Originally Posted by bearhart

Dr. Del, you're post sounds so defensive I feel bad. I apologize if I come accross that adversarial. Honestly, I don't think anybody on here is far off-base (if they are off-base at all). If I sound challenging it is only to elicit a more thorough response in the spirit of debate.

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Hey I am as entitled as everyone else to have an off night.:P

And for the record I'm not so much defensive as frustrated by my apparent inability to explain these things correctly.:(

It's also because by concentrating on the fine details you seem to be missing some of the basic facts - let me interject comments into this paragraph to demonstrate what I mean.

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Originally Posted by bearhart

But - this raises an interesting question: If we are shooting for the perfect temp then why the two hides for thermo regulating?

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There is a basic misunderstanding right there that needs correcting - there is no perfect temp, there is a perfect temperature RANGE within which the snake chooses the temp required for the bodily processes occurring on a real time basis. Hence the need to provide the hides so that it does not have to choose between the security or the right temperature.

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Originally Posted by bearhart

Also, there is an implicit assumption here which is that a constant temperature is best.

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There really isn't and I am at a loss to work out how you came to think there was. In fact nothing on this site would have given you that impression that I have ever seen.

Some keepers may choose to use a constant temperature but they usually do so following one of two reasons and conditions;

1) The temperature chosen is usually a compromise designed to maintain a certain metabolic rate to boost growth or appetite and done so in the knowledge it is artifically restricting the snakes natural lifestyle and patterns.

2) They occasionally do so to promote healing or boost the immune system by creating a "behavioural fever" in an animal that for some reason is not using this natural behaviour on its own.

In both cases they do so with a complex understanding of the needs of their animals and the risks they are running by restricting them. It is not something done lightly or commonly.

For some other species it may be common practice but not in any of the reptiles I have had the pleasure of keeping.:confused:

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Originally Posted by bearhart

If my snake cycles to adjust his temperature to his liking then what basis is there for us to assume that we know better? It could very well be possible that temperature fluctuations drive some metabolic processes in BP's.

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Now your getting it.:)

It drives them all, we don't know better, but knowing that, we provide the correct range for the snake to thrive.

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Originally Posted by bearhart

So, aside from actual contact burns, it is still unclear to me what the symptoms of overheating are.

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What that's not enough? You DID look at the pictures didn't you?:eek:

O.k. here's another symptom of overheating - rapid death.

I fostered a friends sinaloan milk snake for a couple of years while he was in New Orleans. I grew to love the little fella and the tank was beautifully set up to provide the right environment - thermostatically controlled, timed light cycles, lots of hiding places and totally escape proof.

Then he came home.

He asked for his snake back and I , reluctantly, agreed. Two days later he admitted his mother killed it within 24 hours.

She decided it might like some heat so moved the tank into to conservatory on a nice sunny day - apparently it was only just over an hour before he came home to one very dead snake.

If he had been sitting watching it I beleive he may have seen behavioural changes as the snake frantically tried to maintain a healthy internal temperature, neurological problems such as inability to control the body,convulsions and, if its final rest position is relevant, complete inversion onto its back and coma.

Now you might say that is an extreme example - and you'd be right.

A less extreme version would simply be the body's metabolism running too high for some of the internal processes to work efficiently causing stress on the whole system and possibly leading to illness and shortened lifespan as already discussed.

If kept too cold a snake may linger for a very long time slowly deteriorating but overheating can kill with devastating speed. For the record that doesn't mean you intentionally keep the snake cooler than recomended either.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bearhart

Gooseman, you have suggested shortened lifespan but that is based on a single case of a snake of a different species, correct? That's not to invalidate your experience but it is a small "sample set".

I noticed that the vast majority of people on this site have relatively young snakes. It would be interesting to test the life-span question by polling people with the older snakes.

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Since the potential life span seems to be regarded as 45 years or thereabouts then I would say a small statistical sample is all anyone has to work with given the short time the hobby has been at the present level.

There are almost certainly studies going on that might provide some of the answers you seek but it will be decades before their results can be predicted as far as I know - if anyone knows different please jump in.


dr del

Just to pop in with a bit of information regarding your data on African temps.

Most ball pythons in the wild spend the majority of their time in huge and very complex termite mounds or in rat burrows. Through an incredible series of flues, tunnels and the movement of wet mud these termite mounds are kept at an almost perfect humidity level that suits a ball python very well. The temperature found during extensive studies in Africa, no matter the outside temps, is a steady 87 degrees. The termites do this because this is the correct temp and humidity that allows a certain mould to grow and this is what they live on.

Termite mounds become homes for a lot of different creatures which a ball python can happily prey upon.

African rat burrows have been found to maintain an almost perfect 85 degree temp, unaffected again by the outside temps. They are another favored choice for a ball python (after it of course has "evicted" the rattie residents).

What this allows is for the ball python to leave it's chosen "cool" burrow, use the warm outside temp as it needs to and have the ability to return to this stable environment at will. A natural "cool" spot that we mimic in captivity. :)

Recent studies using thermal imaging have shown how the python will go from it's burrow out to the warmer environment and gather the heat it needs before returning. Females on eggs have been shown to gather so much heat as to get almost to a critical point (far, far above what a non-incubating snake would do), then quickly return to their clutch so that heat can be passed on to the eggs.

Awesome!

Dr. Del - I was only asking about the symptoms of overheating because my snake had most definately never been burned despite the high temps. I assume that there might also be a condition caused by chronic overheating. That's what I was asking about. And, don't worry, you do a good job explaining yourself. I'm just a rigid thinker :-)

So, I was under the impression that low 90-s was more optimal and the cool hide was there to "cool off". It makes sense now if that warm side temp is actually a bit higher.

frankykeno, thanks for the details on African habitat. Its cool to understand the environment we're trying to replicate. I've been moving Snakey's cage design to more of a long hide (kind of like a tunnel) that covers the temp gradient. I think I'm going to develop that some more once I get the right supplies...